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I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.

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Monday, February 23, 2009

In honor of Mardi Gras, I pulled Crescent City Cooking by Susan Spicer off the shelf again. I’ve been thrilled with dishes from this book in the past, and it did not disappoint this time either. I chose a couple of dishes for our weekend indulging, and the first one up is the prosciutto-wrapped tuna muffuletta. Spicer explains that the muffuletta is related to the Nicoise pan bagnat which received its name because of the oils that bathe the bread. She created this muffuletta with that concept in mind. It is a richly dressed, unapologetically but deliciously untidy sandwich.

This is a very simple preparation as is and would be even simpler if you chose to use a pre-made olive salad. Since it was a weekend, the weekend before Mardi Gras at that, I was feeling all go for it and set about chopping olives, vegetables giardinera, pepperoncini, garlic, parsley, and celery hearts to make my own olive salad. I’m glad I did because I got to chop the olives just the way I wanted and add extra pickled cauliflower. I also have lots of leftover olive salad as a bonus.

Ordinarily, I’m the pickiest eater I know, but sometimes Kurt has specific opinions about food as well. This time, we tied. Fresh tuna was to be marinated with crushed fennel seeds, lemon zest, red pepper flakes, garlic, and olive oil. We were both fine with that. Then, each tuna portion was to be wrapped with prosciutto. No thank you for mine. The tuna was seared while the sliced ciabatta rolls were toasted under the broiler. Then, the tuna was to be placed on each roll with olive salad and provolone cheese. Kurt does not allow cheese near his fish under any circumstances. So, we ended up with two customized muffulettas, but both were fantastic.

When they came out from under the broiler, arugula was added just before serving. Crunchy and chewy bread, nicely seasoned, marinated and just briefly seared tuna with briny, fruity, peppery olive salad, and a little gooey, melted cheese made a decadent meal. These big, stuffed sandwiches were drippy, messy, and couldn’t have been better. Fortunately, I thought to buy a few extra ciabatta rolls and some good canned tuna in olive oil which made fantastic open-faced tuna melts with olive salad the next day.

The proscuitto is an out of this world addition! Pork and fish...just great. Now the cheese...that's always been one of those odd combos. But we can try anything once. They look really great though. Very, very tasty.

Since you already know, I like your recipes, just wanted to tell you that I made this dish last weekend and it was amazing! Thank you so much for the recipe, it is one we will be enjoying again and again!